Business News

The average Irish household spent €1,532 on groceries in the weeks before Christmas, according to figures from research group Kantar Worldpanel this morning.

That’s €38 more than they forked out last year on festive food.

In the 12 weeks to December 31, the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel show that shoppers in Ireland spent an extra €90m on groceries as they stockpiled for Christmas.

During the 12-week period, Dunnes Stores remained the top grocery chain in the country by the value of sales, with a 23pc share of the multi-billion euro market.

Tesco also performed well, achieving its highest sales growth since February 2011, giving it a 22.8pc share.

SuperValu was third with a 22.4pc share.

German chain Lidl also did well over Christmas. Itheld a 10.4pc share of the grocery market in the latest period. Aldi had 10.3pc, with a modest rise in sales that was below the overall market level. That resulted in its market share dipping by 0.3 percentage points.

David Berry, director of Kantar Worldpanel, said much of the increased spend in the run-up to Christmas was driven by staple items, with fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry posting a combined sales increase of €28m.

He added that alcohol sales rose by 6pc, or €13m, in the period.

“Wine was the drink of choice this year with white wine and red wine sales up an impressive 10pc and 12pc respectively,” he said.

“Online grocers experienced impressive sales growth of 24pc, which boosted their share of the market to a record 2.3pc over the Christmas period,” he said. “Although grocery e-commerce shoppers haven’t increased in number, customers who already shop online have upped the frequency of their purchases with, on average, one extra order placed over this period.”